Cape Town, 25/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - The ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly has adopted a declaration (and two resolutions concerning more specific aspects) on the next negotiations aimed at concluding new trade agreements. It states that the future regional economic partnerships should contribute to the structural transformation of the ACP country economies and guarantee that no ACP country sees its situation get worse regarding conditions for access to the EU market (mainly customs duties and rules of origin). It calls for full respect of the right of the less developed countries to non-mutual trade preferences, and the taking into account of the specific features of small countries and insular States. The agreements should provide for extension of aid in the tax adjustment area, considers the Assembly, which also calls for consultative mechanisms to be set in place to reduce as far as possible the negative effects that reform of the Common Agricultural Policy could have on the economies of the ACP countries. The Assembly also calls on both parties to guarantee the "open, transparent and global nature of the process" and specifies that it plans to establish a permanent follow-up mechanism of these negotiations.
Furthermore, the Assembly adopted three resolutions on:
- The new partnership for development in Africa (NOPADA). It calls on the Commission to seriously undertake to identify, for each of the NOPADA programmes and projects, the methods whereby the Community programmes will be able to support NOPADA, not only directly but also through the intermediary of the ACP-EU partnership.
- Production sectors. The Assembly considers it is appropriate during he rest of the preferential treatment period to support products such as table bananas and rice, so that they can face up to competition on the international market, not only as regards quality but also as regards quantity.
- Sugar. The Assembly again calls on the EU to maintain the sugar protocol. The EU is also invited to take measures to combat the harmful effect that the implementation of the "Everything but Arms" initiative will have on the less advanced ACP countries.